Chapter 49 - Ramsay #2
“I know.” Fuck, did I wish it weren’t true. “But I need you at a distance.” I took the rifle out of her hand and clipped the infrared scope to it. “If you get a clear shot of any of them, you take it.”
Exhaling shakily, she nodded.
“Ian’s on the east side of the property. I’m going to take out the guy on the west and north. By then, Ian will reveal himself. If you see him, you take the shot.”
“Okay. Who … who are the other guys?”
“No idea. Mercenaries more than likely.”
“Oh my God.”
I cupped her face, pulling her toward me. “You can still hide in this room. I’d prefer it.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t leave you.”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I nodded, then pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. Then I pulled out my phone and connected it to the Wi-Fi for calling out.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I have the internet, remember.”
“So, I could have been calling people this whole time?” she grumbled under her breath.
I flashed her a weak smile as the call connected.
“I’m afraid to even ask why you’re calling at this hour,” James said in greeting.
“Ian Kingston has breached my island with two armed men.”
“Fuck.”
“My thoughts precisely. They have my house surrounded. I have Tierney with me.”
“I’ll send out a team.”
“Be quick. If … you’ll protect her if I can’t.”
Silver’s expression tightened with fear. And anger.
“I’ll get someone there as quickly as possible. What information can you provide?”
I relayed what weapons I could see on them, that they had infrared goggles, wore camouflage, and the formation I suspected they were taking to surround the house.
“Use the code name Silver to identify yourself to the team. ETA twenty minutes,” James said. “The helicopter will land on your island, so stay out of the northwest.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t die, my friend. Not now when you might actually start to live.”
“Aye, all right, no need to get sentimental.”
I heard his sharp, worried laugh before we disconnected. Silver held my gaze. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
I tapped the camera app on my phone so I could keep an eye on Ian and his men who had drawn as close as possible to the house without being seen.
We closed the hidden room and then shut Akiva in the bedroom, much to her dismay.
But I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to her, and she was too protective of me and Silver.
Silently, I opened the back door and as Ian stepped out into the clearing at the front of the property, I gestured for Silver to run into the trees.
My fucking heart went with her.
“I know you know we’re here, Logan!” Ian’s clipped, English-accented voice ricocheted around the entire clearing. Akiva began to bark from the bedroom.
I slipped out the door too, silently making my way along the rear of the house. At the gap between it and the barn, I checked the cameras on my phone. Seeing I was clear, I moved past the gap and along the back of the barn.
Ian’s voice continued to echo across the property. “You’re not a coward! So come out and face me!”
His men were starting to move. Towards us.
I prayed Silver stayed hidden as I moved straight into the path of one of the guys.
We were close enough that I heard the crack of bracken under his foot.
Slipping behind one of the thicker trunked oaks that sat among my birch trees, I controlled my breathing until it was barely perceptible.
So the light from my phone didn’t give me away, I shoved it in my pocket and chose one of the knives strapped to my hip.
Another crack over my shoulder to my left had me practically shaking my head. Whoever Ian had brought with him could do with some training. Senses alert, I waited until I felt him draw up beside the tree. I whipped around the back of it before he even had time to process my presence.
He tried to fight.
Even attempted to aim his handgun.
In a series of rapid moves, however, I disabled him with knife wounds to his upper chest, gut, and arms. When he dropped the gun and tried to reach for his own knife, disoriented and dazed by the speed of my attack, I wound my arms around his neck and squeezed until he lost consciousness.
The prick was lucky I didn’t kill him.
I hid his weapons in case he woke up and then checked the cameras on my phone. As I noted the second man had moved and Ian was on my porch, the sound of a gun firing exploded through the trees.
It was so loud, I was sure it would be heard on Leth Sholas.
Fear crashed over me as I pulled up more feeds.
Finally, I found him on one of the cameras installed on a tree.
He was slumped on the ground, clutching at his stomach.
Silver had shot the other guy.
“Good girl,” I murmured, proud and terrified. “Now stay put.”
I could see Ian moving swiftly, constantly on alert, toward the gunshot. I had to get there first. Before he spotted Silver.
I hurried as quietly as possible around the barn and across the clearing toward the woods on the west side and saw Ian find his man. He lifted his gun, pointing it as he scanned the trees beyond.
Just stay hidden. Just stay hidden.
I slowed as I approached and unholstered my SIG Sauer P266. It was the same weapon Ian held. The same weapon we’d both trained on. Back when we were still on the same side.
My night vision was good, but nothing compared to what Ian’s was with those goggles. I tried to watch where I put my feet as he came into sight. Gun trained on him, I approached. “Lower your weapon.”
Ian spun, not lowering his weapon. He pointed it at me one-handed.
He surprised me by pushing the goggles up onto his forehead. Then he clasped both hands on his gun and held it as steady as I did, despite the wrath that emanated from him. All his training went up in smoke, overtaken by his emotions. By his monstrous grief.
“Why now?” I asked, hoping like hell James’s team was already on the island. I merely had to keep Ian talking long enough for them to get to Silver.
“Why do you think?”
“I didn’t kill her,” I reminded him. “I cared about her.”
“Do you think I didn’t know you wanted to fuck my wife?” Ian scoffed. “Everyone knew. She knew. She felt sorry for you.”
Maybe once upon a time his words would have hurt. But no longer. “I’m sorry I failed her.”
“Not as sorry as me. Do you know what the past six years have been like for me while you hid away on this fucking island?”
I didn’t answer.
“You don’t know …” His words released with a harsh grief that felt as fresh as the day Natalya died.
For him it was. He hadn’t moved on or even tried to.
“There was no point in killing you. It wouldn’t bring her back.
It wouldn’t give her the justice she deserved. A quick end is more than you deserve.”
I was afraid to ask again.
Because I knew.
I knew why he was here.
“But it’s different now. Now you can feel what I’ve felt.” He laughed sharply. “To everyone’s disbelief, the great Logan Ferguson has fallen in love.”
“Don’t.” The word escaped me before I could stop it.
“Oh, make this sweeter for me, please. Beg a little more.”
“You’ll ruin your life. The agency. Everything. Gone.”
“What life?” he shouted, the question careening through the trees. “I have no life without her. Because of your fucking ineptitude. And they still act as if you’re this legendary agent and all the while you screwed up! You screwed up, and Natalya paid for it! Why can’t they see that?”
“Ian …” For Silver’s sake, I had to pretend like I didn’t agree with every single word. “You need help.”
“I don’t need help,” he replied calmly, his gun hand never wavering. “They would have discharged me from the agency if I required help.”
They should have.
Clearly, he’d been smart enough to hide how broken he was from the agency’s psychotherapist.
“I was doing quite well, actually,” he said almost conversationally.
“Even met someone. She’s not Natalya, but she was a lovely distraction for a while.
Until someone in James’s circle mentioned he’d helped you out.
And for whom. And for why. A woman. Something just …
something just snapped, Logan. Do you understand?
Do you understand at least why I can’t let you have what you stole from me?
Where is she? I know she’s here. We watched her take the crossing earlier and that is her vehicle in the clearing, is it not?
Is she hiding in the house or the barn?”
He didn’t know she was the one who’d shot his companion.
Good.
“I won’t let you hurt her.”
“Whatever happens here, she is going to die, Logan. Either I kill you first and then I kill her, or I kill her first and then kill you.” I saw his weapon lower ever so slightly to my gut and his finger tense on the trigger.
The shot rang out a second before my trigger finger moved.